Largest-ever Roman mosaic discovered in Turkey

Archaeologist Michael Hoff (University of Nebraska), who gave a lecture at Willamette a few years ago, and his team have now uncovered about 50% of a gigantic Roman mosaic from the 4th century CE. The mosaic once formed a kind of stone carpet around a large, open-air pool in a Roman bath complex in Antiochia ad Cragum. Today a part of Turkey, this area on the margins of the Roman Empire, known as Rough Cilicia, has always been considered as only marginally Romanized. In fact, for centuries its rocky coast served as a perfect hideout for pirates. The discovery of this lavish mosaic may lead scholars to reconsider long-held ideas about the area’s remoteness and lack of civilization.